(spotted this at Treat, a great design blog):

Did you know that Jackie Ormes was the first African-American female cartoonist?

Ormes was born in Pittsburgh, PA as Zelda Maven Jackson August 1, 1911. She started her career as a Proofreader for the Pittsburgh Courier—a weekly black newspaper, and moved to Chicago in 1941 where she wrote articles for the Chicago Defender—which was the largest and most influential black weekly newspaper during her time. Ormes continued writing for the Pittsburgh Courier and later started illustrating characters who became known as Patty-Jo, Ginger, Torchy Brown, and Candy.

Read the rest...

seriously, mr. attention whore?

Nas' upcoming album cover, at left;
at right: Rear view of former slave revealing scars on his back from savage whipping, in photo taken after he escaped to become Union soldier during Civil War. National Archives / Time Life / Getty


I don't care for this.

check out Professor's Kim's latest on BlogHer

(Kim had recently contact me regarding her discussion of an image of Michelle Obama, but she was also preparing this article on murdered South African athlete and lesbian Eudy Simelane, who I'd also heard about from Zanele Muholi.)

Up until the end of April this year, if you had run into former South African footballer Eudy Simelane, chances are that you would have met a happy woman. At 31, Simelane was still involved with the sport she loved as a coach and referee. She was a lesbian in a country in which homosexuality was not only legal, it is enshrined in the Constitution. Not only that, her close-knit family accepted her sexuality, as well as her partner of two years, Sibongile Pearl Vilakazi. On top of all of that good fortune, she was about to start a promising new job with a pharmaceutical company.

Then, on April 28, she was beaten, repeatedly stabbed and reportedly gang-raped and left to die in a shallow river near her home in the Tornado section of KwaThema township. According to news reports, five young men between the ages of 18 and 24 are in custody; reportedly one was a neighbor who knew Simelane. As of May 27, the case has been put off until June 3 while legal representation is being arranged for the defendants. This issue has already delayed the case before.

read more...

Beautiful Me(s): Finding our Revolutionary Selves in Black Cuba, is the true story of an underdog group of graduate students at Yale who journey to Cuba and discover hope for the struggle against racism. Many of the students featured have gone on to earn PhDs in African American Studies and presented their work at CAAR conferences.

Until June 30, you can watch the entire film online at http://cinema.lycos.com/promo/independentfeatures <http://cinema.lycos.com/promo/independentfeatures> . When you arrive at the website, click “Documentary” under All genres and enter Beautiful Mes in the search bar. The films with the most views and highest ratings will be invited to screen at the Independent Features Film Festival this July at Tribeca Cinemas in NYC. If you can, please watch the film, rate the film and pass this link on to a friend.

If you’d like more information about the documentary, to host a screening of it or be added to our email list, please email me at blackresistancereadinggroup@gmail.com.

UPDATED: save the date(s)!

(more to come; I am one of the artists in this show, curated by Lisa Henry, so most likely I'll be there at the opening. There is also an artists' salon moderated by yours truly at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, June 22--I'll update with details and images as I get them)


Volume 13#1 comes out in JUNE, featuring:

• Luscious color imagery by Chuy Benitez, Jaishri Abichandani and Samar Jodha, with a commentary by Arlene Goldbard.
  
• Double Exposure: African Americans Before and Behind the Camera - an exhibition curated by Lisa Henry opening at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco.
  
• Touring Gallery artist Christopher Lopez

Cover photo: Chuy Benitez












Double Exposure: African Americans Before and Behind the Camera

MoAD Members, Friends, and Family are invited to explore the exhibition Double Exposure at an evening preview and reception before the exhibition opens to the public. This exclusive hosted reception features wine and light hors d’oeuvres. MoAD Museum Guides will be available in the exhibition galleries.

Member receptions are by invitation only. Please present your invitation at the door. If you haven't received your invitation, or for more information, please contact the Membership Department at 415.318.7152 or mmccauley@moadsf.org

RSVP Here to reserve your spot:MoAD Members

Wednesday June 18, 2008
Member Preview and Reception
6:00 pm to 8:00 pm Entire Museum
Open to members only
Become a Member

Join us for the Artist Party and public opening of Double Exposure: African Americans Before and Behind the Camera. Exhibition of contemporary and historical photographic works. Food, drinks, dancing, and special guest DJ.

RSVP Here to reserve your spot:MoAD Members | Non-Members

Friday, June 20, 2008
Double Exposure:Artist Party
7PM to Midnight, MoAD Salon
MoAD Members $15, General admission $25

Go Theodore!

(click to enlarge)

interesting

I spotted this on a mailing list I'm on; I know nothing about her photography. Anyone???

I just watched an old film profile on Marian Anderson, and there was a minute or so devoted to her hobbies, one of which was photography.
There was a quick shot of her standing in front of her enlarger, but no images were shown.

Does anyone know if her photographs ever amounted to much? Are they in a collection somewhere?

I'll assume that her other hobby, re-upholstering furniture, was only for her own benefit and didn't survive for the rest of us.



This is a gorgeous image of Anderson, from http://www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/rbm/anderson/
Maybe they also got her photographs at UPenn?

Visual Studies Workshop Summer Institute
31 Prince Street, Rochester, NY 14607 | 585-442-8676 x112

Intensive one-week workshops in photography, film, video, artists' books, web design and much more. Full course catalog available online: http://www.vsw.org or request a printed catalog at workshops@vsw.org. REGISTRATION GOING ON NOW!

July 14-18
Get Out There: Post-MFA Survival Training
with Myra Greene

As artists we are all passionate about the work we make but sometimes lack the skills to get it out into the world. Making a name for yourself post-MFA is an often daunting task. This course will demystify the process and participants will be given an intensive, well-rounded introduction to professional practice, taking the necessary steps to help you prepare for the art market as well as a career in academic teaching.

Topics will include resume writing, teaching philosophy, grant writing and exhibition of your work. Each day we will explore these themes and tackle the paper work necessary for locating and preparing shows, as well as discuss ways of marketing one's artistic self. Workshop participants should be prepared to come with a portfolio and a willingness to take the next step in branding themselves and their work.

Myra Greene received her MFA from the University of New Mexico and is currently faculty in the Photography Department at the Columbia College Chicago. She utilizes photographic technique to exploring issues about the body, memory and the absorption of culture and the shifting identity of African Americans. She has been an Artist in Residence at Light Work in Syracuse and the Center of Photography at Woodstock and has exhibited widely throughout the country. More information can be found at her website: myragreene.com

don't miss this; it's always good

The San Francisco Black Film Festival (SFBFF) celebrates its ten-year anniversary from June 4-8 and June 11-15, 2008, with 100 films in 10 days.

The opening night film is Shoot the Messenger, from Nigerian-born British filmmaker Ngozi Onwurah, about a black British teacher. Other films include Footsteps in Africa, an exploration of the daily life and ritualistic survival of the Tuareg/Kel Tamashek tribe in the Saharan desert of Mali and After 9, the story of a successful but closeted South African man who lives straight during the day but gay after nine.

Among the documentary selections are TRIBUTE: Stanley Tookie Williams, 1953-2005, a look at death-row prisoner, Crips gang co-founder, children’s book author and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Stanley Tookie Williams, and The People’s Advocate: the Life and Times of Charles R. Garry, which recounts the life of one of the most influential criminal defense attorneys of the twentieth century.

The festival’s venues range from the former Social Security office at 1402 Fillmore Street to the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) at 685 Mission Street to Rasselas Jazz Club at 1534 Fillmore Street to the Sundance Cinemas at 1881 Post Street and Yoshi’s at 1330 Fillmore Street. More at the SFBFF web site.

Call for Mural Artists
8th Annual Comcast Art & Soul Oakland

Project Description

Oakland Art Gallery is accepting proposals from artists to create TWO seperate 4' high x 24' long murals to be painted by the general public under the artists supervision during the Art & Soul festival, Labor Day Weekend, Downtown Oakland. Proposals should embody the festival's celebration of the arts. All submissions will be reviewed by a panel and the selected artists receive an artist honorarium.

Criteria:

*The Artist must be available to attend the entire Art & Soul festival August 29, 30, 31, and Sept. 1, 2008(no exceptions)
*Open to all artists who live or work in Oakland
*Prior mural experience is not required, but the panelists will be looking for artists who demonstrate the ability to conceptualize and create a large scale outline. materials will be provided by the Art & Soul festival

Submissions are accepted by email and hard copy, and must include:

*one page description of proposed idea
*images of past projects (if available)
-for email submissions, do not attach files, send a link to images or websites
-for mailed submissions we will accept digital files or prints, no slides
*artist resume(s).
* SASE with enough postage for return of materials. If no Self addressed stamp envelope is included OAG with retain the submission

Send proposals by email to:
kjohnson@oaklandartgallery.org *please include Art and Soul Mural open call in subject line

or mail to: Oakland Art Gallery
199 Kahn's Alley
Oakland, CA 94612
Attn: Art & Soul Mural Open Call

DEADLINE to receive submissions: June 20th, 2008.

Opening next Friday!

"(Re)calling and (Re)telling."
New Photographs by Kesha Bruce.
May 24 - July 5, 2008.
Opening Reception:
Friday, May 30, 6-9pm
Meet and greet all the artists of New Works #11 at En Foco's Opening Reception, open to the public. Bring friends!

Artist Talk:
Saturday, May 31, 1-3pm
Gain insight into the work of New Works artists Kesha Bruce, Adriana Katzew and Donald Daedalus

I'll Fly Away, 2007. Color Photographic Print.
8 x 10 inches. (20 x 25 cm.)

En Foco
New Works #11
El Taller Boricua Gallery
1680 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY

new title coming this fall from University of Chicago Press

Powell, Richard J. Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture. 336 p., 40 color plates, 76 halftones. 8-3/4 x 9-1/2 2008

Cloth $55.00spec ISBN: 978-0-226-67727-9 (ISBN-10: 0-226-67727-3) Fall 2008

Examining portraits of black people over the past two centuries, Cutting a Figure argues that these images should be viewed as a distinct category of portraiture that differs significantly from depictions of people with other racial and ethnic backgrounds. The difference, Richard Powell contends, lies in the social capital that stems directly from the black subject’s power to subvert dominant racist representations by evincing such traits as self-composure, self-adornment, and self-imagining.
Powell forcefully supports this argument with evidence drawn from a survey of nineteenth-century portraits, in-depth case studies of the postwar fashion model Donyale Luna and the contemporary portraitist Barkley L. Hendricks, and insightful analyses of images created since the late 1970s. Along the way, he discusses major artists—such as Frédéric Bazille, John Singer Sargent, James Van Der Zee, and David Hammons—alongside such overlooked producers of black visual culture as the Tonka and Nike corporations. Combining previously unpublished images with scrupulous archival research, Cutting a Figure illuminates the ideological nature of the genre and the centrality of race and cultural identity in understanding modern and contemporary portraiture.

UPDATED

Accra Shepp
The Tobacco Project



May 8 - June 7, 2008
Gallery 138 West 17th Street, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10011
(212) 633-0324
contact@gallery138.com | http://www.gallery138.com
Opening reception
Thursday, May 8, 6:00 - 8:00 pm

Accra Shepp reads from his book Atlas
Wednesday, May 21 from 6:00 - 8:00 pm

ACCRA SHEPP
The Tobacco Project

Exhibition Dates: May 8 – June 7, 2008
Opening Reception for the Artist: May 8, 2008, 6:00 – 8:00 pm

Gallery 138 is pleased to present The Tobacco Project, a mixed media installation by Accra Shepp, opening on May 8, 2008. In this new series, Shepp investigates the cultural contradictions of tobacco by documenting the lives of tobacco plantation owners and migrant workers on farms in Kentucky, Georgia, and North Carolina. The exhibition includes life sized photographic portraits printed on tobacco leaves grown by the farmers, photographs of the interior and exteriors of the farms, jars of dirt from which the tobacco was grown, and tobacco ashes in tins of chewing tobacco.

Shepp’s work addresses the relationship between the natural world, science, and urban civilization. As a little boy, growing up in a concrete city, Shepp had no idea there was earth under his feet. It is not coincidence that the materials of his installation are leaves, dirt and ashes: to Shepp, they represent the cycle of life. Accra sees the leaf as a unit by which we measure nature. Tobacco is a cash crop made from this unit of measure.

“Tobacco is not ambiguous,” Accra says. “Guilty pleasure, deadly vice, no other substance has a similar array of known hazards, yet people smoke. Tobacco has a long and complicated history, from its cultivation through the labor of enslaved people during the founding of this country to its modern cultivation with the use of migrant labor.”

Despite this statement, Accra explores the world of tobacco without didactic malice or blame. Like a Buddhist monk, it is his intention that we see tobacco, and ourselves, more clearly.

Accra Shepp received his B.A. from Princeton University and his M.A. from New York University. His work has been recently exhibited at The African American Museum in Philadelphia, The Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., The Whitney Museum / Philip Morris, and the Jamaica Art Center. He has been the recipient of Fulbright and NYFA fellowships. His work is included in the collections of renowned museums such as The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney, The Art Institute of Chicago, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Gallery 138 is located at 138 West 17th Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10011, (212) 633-0324. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm. Closed for holidays. For additional information, please contact Brookie Maxwell at 633-0324, contact@gallery138.com.

The Joyce Gordon Photography Gallery will showcase eight emerging photographers with the
exhibition Insight: Focus on Emerging Photographers, on view June 6 through July 18, 2008. "Insights" features a selection of work from six Bay Area photographers and two British photographers - who interpret our world and show us what they see in instinctively personal visual vocabularies.



Opening Reception:
June 6, 2008
5:30 - 8:30pm

Exhibit Dates:
June 6 - July 17, 2008

Featured photographers:
Traci Bartlow (Oakland, California)
Rameen Gasery (Oakland, California)
Babak Gholamhossein (Oakland, California)
Judy Seidel (Berkeley, California)
Melanie Sims (Scotland, UK)
John Vias (Berkeley, California)
Greame Weston (London, UK)
Pat Willard (Redwood, CA)


Joyce Gordon Photography Gallery
406 14th Street
Oakland, CA 94612
(510) 465-8911

www.joycegordonphotographygallery.com

I can't make up my mind about these images

(They're gorgeous portraits of beautiful children, but there's something about all of his work that leaves me uneasy. Why is that? Is it because Pieter Hugo's work gets reproduced a lot and I think, here we go again, more pictures of black people rather than by black people (I know he's South African by birth and though I've never seen a picture of him it's my understanding that he is not a black person, although if he is I'll happily stand corrected)? That's certainly a factor. As I've said here before, it isn't that black people can't be photographed by anyone other than black people, but rather it's the perpetuation of the inequities between black and white makers that gets subsumed by this belief that somehow you've done right because the subjects are people of color. For me, it's samo, samo, complicated by the fact that I am drawn to these portraits.)

Pieter Hugo: Portraits

Images :
Steven Mohapi, Johannesburg, 2003
Londiwe Wendy Mkhize, Pietermaritzburg, 2005

Private View: Thursday 29 May 08

Open Eye Gallery and Autograph ABP are proud to present the first substantial UK exhibition by South African artist Pieter Hugo. This exhibition focuses on three bodies of work, all of which use portraiture to call into question our understanding of how we view others.

Pieter Hugo: Portraits was produced with the support of Michael Stevenson Gallery, Capetown.

Events

Friday 30 May, 2pm In Conversation: Pieter Hugo and Indra Khanna, Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool
Wednesday 11 June, 6.30pm: Still Cinema 4: free screening of 'Stander', Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool
Saturday 21 June, 2pm: Perspectives on Pieter Hugo: Raimi Gbadamosi, Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool

http://www.openeye.org.uk

Special Advance Notice
Artist Talk
Wednesday 4 June, 6.30 - 8pm, Rivington Place, London

Entry is free, but space is limited and booking is essential. No block bookings please.

RSVP to bookings@rivingtonplace.org
If you have Booked, collect your ticket on the day from Reception from 5.30pm - 6.15pm.
Tickets not collected by 6.15pm will be handed out to people on the Waiting List.
Please see map on http://www.rivingtonplace.org

happy birthday!!

There's nothing but love up in here for you, Grace.

twice in one day

I don't think I had ever seen a photograph of the artist Radcliffe Bailey, and I was editing a document today with a picture of him in his studio and thought to myself, huh, so that's him (I really like his work), and then lo and behold there he is on the gossip blogs (from where I snagged the photos)!

I remember the layout last year of Victoria's art-filled house in an issue of O at Home--I saved it--as I recall Amalia Amaki's work was featured prominently, among others--and here, it seems, she's engaged to Radcliffe Bailey. Looks like she went herself one better on the collecting front! Okay, yeah, that's tacky.

I love it when artists hit the mainstream news, even if it is only celebrity gossip.

reason #1,293 why I don't teach

A friend who does teach received this from a student at the end of the semester--a college senior, now, so this is an adult woman about to go out in the world and presumably take responsibility for her own actions (don't even get me started on her poor ability to communicate--did she think she was writing a note to a friend?) My friend had told me about it, but this is whinier, more disrespectful, and more pathetic than I imagined. Can you imagine being so arrogant and self-important? Seriously, how do you teachers endure it? Is is that rewarding otherwise? Are the summers off that sweet? As Fresh would say, I can't. Jesus be a reality check for this poor child!

i just wanna know why i got a C-, i worked really hard and its not my fault most of my photos didn't come out because the film was bad, i really don't think thats fair. not to mention someone in the class did not even take photographs and i'm sure she got a better grade than me. i know she had an image at the end but in no way was it a photo and i know i wasn't in digital imaging. the class was titled photo concerns 3, there should have been photos. did you even notice you talked for her every time she presented, or rather you presented.

i'm so swift

I finally figured out why my Feedblitz mailing list didn't include post contents--I had given them the wrong address! You live and learn. All this new technology...I feel like such a old-timer out here these days! But I loves the technology so I keep on plugging on...

So now it's better. Subscribe! (at right >>>) Encourage your friends to subscribe. Where else are you going to hear about all of these amazing artists (well, I hope in lots of places, actually, in a perfect world)?

GALLERY 138 UPTOWN AT CASA VERO
Opening May 28, 2008 with the exhibition, Hope at the Door

Gallery 138 is pleased to announce the opening of a second exhibition space on Wednesday, May 28. Gallery 138 Uptown at Casa Vero, located at 138 West 124th Street in Harlem, is the creation of Vie Wilson and Brookie Maxwell. Their unique combination of talents is immediately evident in this new, collaborative space.

Vie Wilson is a Senior Vice President and Associate Broker for the Corcoran Group, the largest residential real estate firm in New York. Building on more than two decades of experience in real estate, she is adept at creating and marketing living spaces with style, grace, and an eye for detail. Wilson enjoys travel, photography, collecting art, entertaining, and cooking—she is in the process of completing her first cookbook.

Brookie Maxwell is a gallerist, artist, dancer, and writer. Director and owner of Gallery 138, a contemporary art gallery in Chelsea, Maxwell represents emerging and mid-career artists from a broad range of disciplines, bringing intriguing, socially relevant exhibitions into the public realm. Gallery 138 artists have been featured in venues throughout the U.S. and abroad, including The Museum of Modern Art, The Tate Liverpool, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and The Venice Biennale. Prior to opening the gallery in 2002, she served as the founder and Artistic Director of Creative Arts Workshops, a non-profit located in East Harlem.

Gallery 138 Uptown’s inaugural show will be Hope at the Door, an exhibition of drawings and mixed-media by Brookie Maxwell. The show, which opens May 28, will feature two bodies of work: Taxi! and Annunciation. Taxi! is a series of storyboard-like drawings documenting the experience of black males who still find it easier to get arrested in New York than to hail a cab; in Annunciation, the artist’s large-scale drawings and video installation mine biblical themes as cultural reference points, addressing contemporary American issues of civil and reproductive rights.

Maxwell's work has been exhibited in solo and group shows at galleries and museums throughout the U.S., including A.I.R. Gallery, DFN Gallery, Exit Art, the Henry Street Settlement, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, LaGuardia Community College, and The Ogunquit Museum of American Art. Hope at the Door will be on exhibit through July 13.

Gallery 138 Uptown at Casa Vero is located at 138 West 124th Street, Studio 1B, New York, NY 10027, one block from the Studio Museum, between Lenox and Adam Clayton Powell. Hours by appointment.

Gallery 138 is located at 138 West 17th Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10011. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm. Closed for Holidays. For more information, please call Brookie Maxwell, (212) 633-0324, or email contact@gallery138.com.


__________


G A L L E R Y 1 3 8

138 West 17th Street, Fifth Floor
New York, NY 10011

contact@gallery138.com
212 633 0324

Glimpses In Time
International Juried Photography Exhibition
Submission Deadline: July 1, 2008

Photographers working in all styles, in traditional or digital formats, are invited to enter up to two of their photographic images for the international juried photography exhibition Glimpses in Time. The top award recipient will receive a solo exhibition at the Joyce Gordon Gallery. Entry forms and submission guidelines can be found at: www.joycegordonphotographygallery.com .
This year's exhibit pays tribute to the life and art of James Van Der Zee, an American-born photographer who produced the most comprehensive documentation of the Harlem Renaissance. His experimentation with double exposures and retouching negatives allowed him to articulate the persona of a period that influenced generations of artists around the globe.

About the Juror: Steven Wirtz, owner of the prestigious Steven Wirtz Gallery www.wirtzgallery.com in San Francisco, will be the sole juror. Opening in 1972, the Steven Wirtz Gallery has become one of the most established galleries in California, with a strong focus on photography.

Joyce Gordon Gallery
406 14th Street
Oakland, CA 94612
(510) 465-8928
www.joycegordongallery.com

www.joycegordonphotographygallery.com

retail art

Spotted at Make Fetch Happen:

The GAP has unveiled their 13 limited edition "ArtistEditions" t-shirts produced in association with the 2008 Whitney Biennial and Art Production Fund. The shirts, which will retail from $28 to $38 were designed by 13 Whitney Biennial artists including Kerry James Marshall and Glenn Ligon . The shirts will be available mid May at select GAP stores and online at Gap.com. They will also be available at the Whitney museum gift shop.


I'm not a printed t-shirt wearer but I may have to get Kerry's, at right (does this undo the Gap's sweatshop-supporting reputation, though?):

Landscape of Slavery: The Plantation in American Art Examines the Impact of Plantation Imagery

Traveling exhibition organized by the Gibbes Museum of Art presents
plantation-related images of the American South from the eighteenth
century to the present.

(February 15, 2008 - Charleston, SC) – The Gibbes Museum of Art has
organized a groundbreaking exhibition entitled Landscape of Slavery:
The Plantation in American Art to offer a comprehensive,
interdisciplinary examination of plantation images in the American
South.

The exhibition was on view at the University of Virginia Art
Museum in Charlottesville, VA from January 25 – April 20, 2008, and
will then be on view at the Gibbes in Charleston, SC from May 9 -
August 3, 2008. Following the Gibbes, the exhibition will travel to
the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, GA where it will be on display
from August 23 – October 19, 2008.

Todd D. Smith, Executive Director of the Gibbes explains the
inspiration for the project, “The mission of the Gibbes is to tell the
story of the visual culture of the South and the plantation has been
(and still continues to be) a defining characteristic of the history
and present state of the region. The museum’s collection includes
several important works related to the subject, and we were inspired
to lead an effort to unravel the realities and fictions that surround
the subject matter.”

Curated by Angela D. Mack, the museum’s Deputy Director for Curatorial
Affairs, the exhibition features over 100 paintings, works on paper,
photographs, mixed media and installation works. The three venues
each offer a unique installation and presentation of objects and a
complete list of objects in the exhibition is available at
www.gibbesmuseum.org. Through the eyes of a range of artists such as
Eastman Johnson, Winslow Homer, William Aiken Walker, Alice Ravenel
Huger Smith, John Biggers, Edwin Harleston, Carrie Mae Weems and Kara
Walker, Landscape of Slavery examines depictions of plantations,
plantation views and related slave imagery in the context of the
history of landscape painting in America. “More than a history of the
visual imagery related to the plantation, the show invites one to
consider the impact that this imagery has had on race relations for
three centuries,” says Mack.

A genre predominantly tied to the Southern region of the United
States, the plantation view has traditionally received marginal
attention in the study of American landscape art. Previous work on
the plantation subject has emphasized the debt the genre owes to 18th
century British aesthetic theories and styles. In recent years,
however, art historians have worked to identify general shifts in
plantation iconography that reflect specific historical events.
Meanwhile, plantation views have attracted the attention of social
historians who have identified the genre as a rich source for
exploring issues of wealth, power, race, memory and nostalgia.
Landscape of Slavery seeks to bring these current discussions on the
topic together for the public’s consideration.

Landscape of Slavery: The Plantation in American Art is supported in
part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Sponsors
of the Gibbes exhibition include Gibbes, etc., Charleston Renaissance
Gallery, The Henry and Sylvia Yaschik Foundation, The Humanities
Council SC, Dr. and Mrs. George W. Williams and media sponsor
Charleston Magazine.

About the Book
Landscape of Slavery: The Plantation in American Art
Edited by Angela D. Mack and Stephen G. Hoffius
(University of South Carolina Press)
Serving as a companion to the exhibition of the same name, Landscape
of Slavery draws upon art history and social history as it illustrates
the complexities of the American South. Landscape of Slavery
undertakes an original study of plantation images from the eighteenth
century through the present to unravel the realities and mythology
inherent in this complex and often provocative subject.

Through ninety-two full-color plates, sixteen black-and-white
illustrations and six thematic essays, the book examines depictions of
plantation structures, plantation views and related slave imagery and
art in the context of the American landscape tradition, addressing the
impact of these works on race relations in the United States.
Contributors to the volume are Alexis L. Boylan, Michael D. Harris,
Leslie King-Hammond, Angela D. Mack, Maurie D. McInnis, Roberta
Sokolitz and John Michael Vlach.

Related Programming – all occur at the Gibbes unless otherwise noted
Curator-Led Tours
Friday, May 9 at 1pm and Friday, May 23 at 3pm -- free with museum
admission
Angela D. Mack, Gibbes Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs, will
lead these insightful tours of the exhibition.

Landscape of Slavery: A Critical Conversation
Panel Discussion Followed by Book Signing
Friday, May 23 10am– 11:30am -- $7 museum members, students, seniors/
$12 non-members
All book contributors including Alexis L. Boylan, Michael D. Harris,
Leslie King-Hammond, Maurie D. McInnis, Roberta Sokolitz, John Michael
Vlach and Stephen G. Hoffius will participate in this discussion
moderated by Angela D. Mack.
This event is supported by The Humanities Council of South Carolina
and Brunk Auctions.

Lunchtime Lecture Series
Select Fridays at 1pm. (May 30, June 6, June 20 and July 11) -- free
with museum admission
Join local scholars, cultural critics, and conservationists as they
explore the exhibition from varying perspectives.


Film Screening and Benefit: Gone with the Wind at the Terrace Theater
on James Island
Friday, June 13 at 6pm -- $25 museum members/ $35 non members
View the classic film Gone with the Wind and enjoy live music and
refreshments. Proceeds benefit education and outreach programs at the
Gibbes.

GIBBES MUSEUM OF ART
Established as the Carolina Art Association in 1858 (celebrating 150
years in 2008), the Gibbes Museum of Art opened its doors to the
public in 1905. Located in Charleston’s historic district, the Gibbes
houses a premier collection of over 10,000 works, principally American
with a Charleston or Southern connection and presents special
exhibitions throughout the year. In addition, the museum offers an
extensive complement of public programming and educational outreach
initiatives. As the aesthetic heart of the Lowcountry, the Gibbes
serves the community by stimulating creative expression, increasing
economic vitality through tourism and improving the region’s superb
quality of life.
MUSEUM HOURS
TUESDAY - SATURDAY: 10 A.M. - 5 P.M., SUNDAY: 1 P.M. - 5 P.M.

ADMISSION:
ADULTS: $9.00 · SENIORS, STUDENTS & MILITARY: $7.00 · CHILDREN (6-12):
$5.00
·MEMBERS AND CHILDREN UNDER 6: FREE.
135 Meeting Street * Charleston, SC * 29401 * www.gibbesmuseum.org
#####

France Noire – Black France:
The Poetics and Politics of Blackness
June 6-7, 2008 - Paris, France
http://history.berkeley.edu/faculty/Stovall/conference/

In Memoriam: Aimé Césaire, Michel Fabre, and Ousmane Sembène

Conveners:
Tyler Stovall, Trica Danielle Keaton, Marcus Bruce

Keynote Address:
Friday, June 6, 2008 - 17h00 –18h00
Madame Christiane Taubira
Member of Parliament
Députée de Guyane

Introduction by Fred Constant
Professor of Political Science, Université des Antilles et de la Guyane
(France) and
French Minister of Foreign Affairs

Opening Remarks by Tyler Stovall
Dean and Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley

Closing Tribute to Aimé Césaire by Abiola Irele
Professor of African and Afro-American Studies and Romance Languages and
Literatures at Harvard University
http://www.theroot.com/id/45959

Conference Location:
Columbia University Institute for Scholars
Reid Hall
4 rue de Chevreuse
75006 Paris
Metro: Montparnasse
For more information, please contact the conveners:
tstovall@berkeley.edu; tkeaton@umn.edu; mbruce@bates.edu

Colloquium Mission
The last few years have seen an extraordinary flowering of Black
consciousness in France. Individuals and collectives have organized
around questions pertaining to the memory of slavery, “race” and
anti-black racism, the Black condition, and what it generally means to
be Black in contemporary French society. At the same time, there has
been a new wave of scholarship on Blacks in Europe and a (re)theorizing
of “blackness” in the African diaspora relative to European society and
history. Paris, in particular, has always been a center of Black life
worldwide, from the Négritude movement of the past to the myriad
formations of Black empowerment specific to this moment. On June 6 and
7, 2008, a gathering of leading international scholars will meet in
Paris to examine what we identify here as "Black France," that is, the
Black presence and condition in French society. Madame Christiane
Taubira, the esteemed member of the French Parliament whose very name is
now synonymous with legislation that recognizes slavery and the slave
trade as crimes against humanity—The Taubira Law—will deliver the
keynote address as the prelude to an exciting and stimulating series of
discussions. We encourage all those interested in the African diaspora
and French society to join us for what will be an historic event.

Colloquium Schedule – June 6-7, 2008

Friday, June 6, 2008
9h00 – 9h25
Opening Remarks
Tyler Stovall – University of California, Berkeley

Session I - Theme: Black Ontology in Formation
Questions & Answers at Conclusion of Session
9h30 – 10h30
Hortense Spillers – Vanderbilt University
"The Idea of Black Culture"

Elisabeth Boyi – Stanford University
“Identité problématique et identitification productive”

Allison Blakely – Boston University
"Black Identity in France in a European Perspective"

10h30-10h40
Pause

10h40-11h40
Michelle Wright – University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
“Reconsidering Paris: The Physics of Blackness in the Postwar Era”

Arlette Frund – Université François Rabelais, Tours
“Site-ing Black France: discourses and the making of identities"

Brent Edwards – Columbia University
“The Unheard Voice of Black Paris”

Chair: Trica Danielle Keaton – University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Lunch

Session II - Theme: Black France: Presence, Protest, and Prosperity
Questions & Answers at Conclusion of Session
13h30-14h30
Abiola Irele – Harvard University
"Black France in the Thirties"

Jennifer Boittin- Pennsylvania State University
"The Militant Black Men of Marseille and Paris during the Interwar Years"

Gary Wilder - Pomona College
"Federalism as the Future Past of Black France: Revisiting Senghor's Postwar
Vision"

14h30-14h40
Pause

14h40-15h40
Marcus Bruce – Bates University
"The New Negro in Paris: Booker T. Washington, The Paris Exposition of
1900, and The American Negro Exhibit"

Tracy Sharpley-Whiting- Vanderbilt University
“Bricktop's Paris: African American Women Expatriates in the Jazz Age”

Bennetta Jules-Rosette – University of California, San Diego
"Reflections on the Future of Black Paris: Hues of the Rainbow in a
Global Village"

Chair: Denis-Constant Martin - Senior Research Fellow, CEAN-Sciences Po
Bordeaux-FNSP

17h00 –18h00
Keynote Address
Christiane Taubira

18h30-19h30
Opening Reception

Saturday, June 7, 2008
Session I - Theme: The Social Significance of Race, Racialization, and
Racism
Questions & Answers at Conclusion of Session
10h00-11h00
Mamadou Diouf – Columbia University
TBA

Eric Fassin – Ecole Normale Supérieure
“France in Black and White? The Emergence of Racial Categories in the
Color-Blind Republic"

Tyler Stovall – University of California, Berkeley
“No Green Pastures: The ‘African Americanization’ of France”

11h00-11h10
Pause

11h10-12h10
Jean-Paul Rocchi - Université de Paris VII
"Frantz Fanon, the Masquerade of (Anti) Racism, and the Discipline of
Jouissance - A Reading of Conservatism"

Patrick Lozès – Conseil Repréntatif des Associations Noires (le CRAN)
TBA

Rémy Bazenguissa-Ganga - Centre d'études africaines- EHESS
TBA

Chair: Ramon Grosfoguel - University of California, Berkeley

Lunch

Session II - Theme: Black Exclusion - Black Belonging: Contemporary
Questions and Dilemmas
Questions & Answers at Conclusion of Session
14h00-15h00
Fred Constant - Université des Antilles et de la Guyane
“Black France and the debate over 'discriminations positives”

Dominic Thomas – University of California, Los Angeles
“BLACK FRANCE: Immigration and National Identity”

Michel Giraud - École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
“Memory of Slavery among the French Antilleans: Silence or Amnesia”

15h00-15h10
Pause

15h10-15h50
Veronique Helenon - Florida International University
“Poetics of Hip Hop”

Fatimata Wane-Sagna - Journaliste à France 24 Chaîne d'actualité
internationale
" La question noire dans les médias en France depuis les émeutes en
banlieue de 2005"

Chair: James Cohen - Université de Paris VII

Session III - Theme: Black France: The Writers’ Landscape
Questions & Answers at Conclusion of Session
16h30-17h30
Daniel Maximin: Award-Winning Novelist, Poet, and Essayist
TBA

Barbara-Chase Riboud: Award-Winning Novelist and Artist

Alain Mabanckou : Award-Winning Novelist, Professor- The University of
California-Los Angeles (UCLA)

17h30-17h40
Pause

17h40-18h20
Jake Lamar: Award-Winning Novelist

Simon Njami: Award-Wining Novelist, Art Critic, and Curator

Chair: Geneviève Fabre - Université de Paris VII, Director of the Center
of African American Research.

19h00-20h30 – Closing Remarks and Reception
Abiola Irele – Harvard University


A Colloquium Sponsored by
-The Ford Foundation;
-African American and Diaspora Studies; The Center for Ethics, and The
Robert Penn Warren
-Center for the Humanities "Black Europe" Seminar at Vanderbilt University;
-The Office of the Senior Vice The President for System Academic
Administration and the Office of the Vice President and Vice Provost for
Equity and Diversity at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities;
-Office of the Dean of Faculty at Bates College

what you would call a two-fer

Sheila and Julian (with whom I used to work many years ago--lovely man)?! They're at the High Museum talking about Sheila's current exhibition, Young Americans.

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